Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling

{{short description|Wife of Rudyard Kipling (1862–1939)}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling

|image = Caroline Starr Balestier, Mrs Rudyard Kipling (1862-1939).jpg

|caption = Mrs. Kipling in 1899, painted by Edward Burne-Jones

|birth_name = Caroline Starr Balestier

|birth_date = {{birth date|1862|12|31}}

|birth_place = Rochester, New York, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|1939|12|19|1862|12|31}}

|death_place = Burwash, East Sussex, England

|spouse = {{marriage|Rudyard Kipling|1892|1936|reason=died}}

|children = {{hlist|Josephine|Elsie|John}}

|relatives = Wolcott Balestier (brother)

}}

Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (December 31, 1862 – December 19, 1939), also known as Carrie, was the American-born wife of Rudyard Kipling and the custodian of his literary legacy after his death in 1936.{{cite web | last=Hill | first=Amelia | title=The cruel side of Kipling | website=the Guardian | date=2000-11-26 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/nov/26/books.booksnews | access-date=2021-01-07}}

Balestier was born in Rochester, New York, to a prominent local family with a reputation for being unconventional.{{cite book |last1=Nicholson |first1=Adam |title=The hated wife : Carrie Kipling, 1862-1939 |date=2001 |publisher=Short Books |url=https://archive.org/details/hatedwife00adam/|location=London |isbn=0571208355 |access-date=8 January 2021}}{{cite web |last1=Frank |first1=Meryl |last2=McKelvey |first2=Blake |title=Some Former Rochesterians of National Distinction |url=https://www.libraryweb.org/~rochhist/v21_1959/v21i3.pdf |website=Rochester History |publisher=Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, NY |access-date=7 January 2021 |page=22 |date=July 1959}} Her paternal grandfather, whose French ancestors were from Martinique, was a founder of the Century Association; her maternal grandfather was E. Peshine Smith, who with Commodore Perry completed commercial negotiations with Japan.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Balestier met Kipling via her brother Wolcott Balestier who had co-authored The Naulahka: A Story of West and East with Kipling. Balestier had come to London to keep house for her brother and serve as hostess for him.{{cite web | title=Kipling and Wolcott Balestier | website=Kipling Society homepage | date=2011-12-20 | url=http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_dedication_brb_holb.htm | access-date=2021-01-07}}{{rp|15}} She taught Kipling how to use a typewriter. When Wolcott Balestier died suddenly of typhoid in 1891, Kipling was distraught and spent time with Miss Balestier, proposing to her via telegram and marrying her a week later.{{cite web | title=Kipling: Poet Laureate Of Soldiers, Sailors, And Colonizers | website=The American Conservative | date=2020-09-05 | url=https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/kipling-poet-laureate-of-soldiers-sailors-and-colonizers/ | access-date=2021-01-07}} The couple were married in London on January 18, 1892. The bride was given away by Henry James who exclaimed "It’s a union of which I don’t forecast the future."{{cite magazine | last=McGrath | first=Charles | title=Rudyard Kipling in America | magazine=The New Yorker | date=2019-07-08 | url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/rudyard-kipling-in-america | access-date=2021-01-07}}

The Kiplings had planned a round-the-world trip for their honeymoon but Kipling's bank failed, causing them to relocate to Balestier's family residence in Brattleboro, Vermont. Once the Kiplings built the family house, Naulakha, Rudyard Kipling would write in an office that could only be accessed via Carrie Kipling's own office, where she would maintain his correspondence and manage the household accounts.{{rp|34}} The Kiplings left the United States in 1896 after Rudyard Kipling and Caroline's brother Beatty had an altercation over money.

The Kiplings eventually settled in England, in rural Burwash in the county of Sussex. They purchased Bateman's, a grand house that had been built in 1634.{{cite book

|last1 = Antram|first1 = Nicholas

|last2 = Pevsner|first2 = Nikolaus

|author-link2 = Nikolaus Pevsner

|year = 2013

|title = Sussex: East

|series = The Buildings of England

|publisher = Yale University Press

|location = New Haven, US & London, UK

|page=295

|isbn = 9-780300-18473-0

|oclc = 826658807

}}

Bateman's was Carrie Kipling's home from 1902 until her death in 1939.{{cite web |url=https://artuk.org/visit/venues/national-trust-batemans-7426 |website=Art UK |access-date=8 January 2021|title=National Trust, Bateman's | Art UK }}